Essential Questions

What unit/big topic will be used?

Black History Month

What big ideas should students understand?

  1. Multicultural history
  2. How jazz connects to history & culture
  3. Improvisation/scat singing
  4. Work songs/spirituals
  5. Martin Luther King Jr.
  6. Civil War

What projects could be designed for the unit?

  1. Junior high band sections research someone who played their instrument
  2. History of jazz
  3. Follow the Drinking Gourd - students write their own lyrics
  4. History timeline

What are the objectives/learning goals?

  1. Cover the nine national standards - improv/compare & contrast/solo/perform as a group
    1. 1. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
      2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
      3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
      4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
      5. Reading and notating music.
      6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
      7. Evaluating music and music performances.
      8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
      9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.
  2. Connect to jazz history music

What assessments will be used to measure learning?

  1. Tests, performances, projects

What vocabulary terms will be important for students to learn and know?

  1. jazz
  2. improvisation
  3. emancipation
  4. underground railroad
  5. call & response
  6. gospel
  7. spiritual
  8. work-song
  9. be-bop
  10. scat
  11. among others